A Dangerous Woman: American Beauty, Noted Philanthropist, Nazi Collaborator - The Life of Florence Gould

by Susan Ronald Narrated by Carol Monda

Overview

From Susan Ronald, author of The Pirate Queen, comes a revealing new audiobook biography.

With each sensational chapter, A Dangerous Woman documents the life of Florence Gould, a fabulously wealthy socialite and patron of the arts, who hid her dark past as a Nazi collaborator in 1940's Paris.

Born in turn-of-the-century San Francisco to French parents, Florence moved to Paris, aged eleven. Believing that only money brought respectability and happiness, she became the third wife of Frank Jay Gould, son of the railway millionaire Jay Gould. She guided Frank's millions into hotels and casinos, creating a luxury hotel and casino empire. She entertained Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Joseph Kennedy, and many Hollywood stars, like Charlie Chaplin, who became her lover. While the party ended for most Americans after the Crash of 1929, Frank and Florence refused to go home. During the Occupation, Florence took several German lovers and hosted a controversial salon. As the Allies closed in, the unscrupulous Florence became embroiled in a notorious money laundering operation for fleeing high-ranking Nazis.

Yet after the war, not only did she avoid prosecution, but her vast fortune bought her respectability as a significant contributor to the Metropolitan Museum, New York University, and Cornell Medical School, among many others. It also earned her friends like Estée Lauder who obligingly looked the other way.

A seductive and utterly amoral woman who loved to say “money doesn't care who owns it”, Florence's life proved a strong argument that perhaps money can buy happiness after all.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

12/04/2017
Ronald (Hitler’s Art Thief) provides an unvarnished account of the life of avant-garde socialite Florence Lacaze Gould, whose dazzling, gilded lifestyle belied her dark side as a libertine, Nazi collaborator, and war profiteer. Born in San Francisco in 1895, Florence spent much of her childhood in Paris after her family was displaced by the 1906 earthquake. After a brief marriage to millionaire Henry Heynemann, Florence wed Frank Gould, scion of a railroad mogul, in 1923. They maintained an open marriage (Charlie Chaplin, Harpo Marx, and Pablo Picasso were among her many lovers). Known as a great beauty with “sexually charged allure,” Florence was also a sharp businesswoman who owned successful casinos, restaurants, and hotels. Ronald sprinkles the narrative with vignettes of high society in Paris during the roaring ’20s and ’30s; Florence hosted a salon for the literati during the Nazi occupation years, during which she also bought looted artwork, bribed and bedded members of the Gestapo, and was caught up in a banking scandal. Although Florence’s letters and photographs were inaccessible to the author, Ronald compensates with layers of research into the period and surrounding players. While the dense historical detail may deter lay readers, history lovers will welcome this impressive book about a captivating, flawed woman. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

Praise for A Dangerous Woman:

"Energetic...Ronald's group portrait is breath-taking and quite modern." —New York Times Book Review

“Ronald traces Gould’s amoral life and high-flying times…elegant and beautiful, she used sex and charm as her currency, trading them for favors and luxuries that let her sail through the war years unscathed.” —New York Post

“A lively picture of the world in which Florence moved, with all its intricate financial shenanigans, rivalrous investors and glittering social occasions.” —Wall Street Journal

“Ronald provides an unvarnished account of the life of avant-garde socialite Florence Lacaze Gould, whose dazzling, gilded lifestyle belied her dark side as a libertine, Nazi collaborator, and war profiteer...History lovers will welcome this impressive book about a captivating, flawed woman.” —Publishers Weekly

"Drawing on many published sources, newspaper reports of Gould's scandalous escapades, and Gould's often fraudulent testimony when she was interrogated as a Nazi collaborator, Ronald conveys the glittering surface of Gould's life...A light, lively narrative about a singular, narcissistic woman." —Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Hitler's Art Thief:

“[A] riveting portrait of Gurlitt, who detested the Nazis, and stole from them, but did their bidding in the name of ‘saving modern art’.” —The New Yorker

“Ronald situates Gurlitt’s life and career amid the turmoil of Weimar Germany and then the evolution of Nazi art-looting campaigns...[adding] many new details about Gurlitt’s dealings.” —Wall Street Journal

“Susan Ronald tells the back story of what may be the most startling art-world bust in modern history.” —USA Today

“One man’s extraordinary career of thievery...an exhaustively researched and well written book that has a cautionary tale for all of us.” —Forbes

“Outstanding...Hitler's Art Thief brilliantly examines the motivating forces, both internal and external, that led Hildebrand Gurlitt to go work for the Führer.” —The Jerusalem Post

Kirkus Reviews

2017-10-11
A biography of a seductress, gold digger, and Nazi collaborator.As Ronald (Hitler's Art Thief: Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the Looting of Europe's Treasures, 2015, etc.) repeatedly asserts, Florence Gould (1895-1983) was "an unmitigated snob and egotist" whose only goal in life was "having a good time in high society." Born in America to French parents, Gould had aspirations to become a world-famous opera singer; when her talent did not measure up to her outsized self-assessment, she became a chorus girl. After divorcing her wealthy first husband, she caught the eye of Frank Gould, the alcoholic son of railroad magnate Jay Gould, whom she wrested away from his second wife. Frank provided her with jewels and a string of hotels and casinos in French resorts. He also had a predisposition to collecting his own coterie of mistresses while she thrived in the company of "pretty boys" and lovers, including the besotted Charlie Chaplin. Gould's "beauty, charm, and fabulous wealth had become a deadly man magnet," Ronald writes. She had a reputation "as a lioness, devouring the men she wanted at will." Drawing on many published sources, newspaper reports of Gould's scandalous escapades, and Gould's often fraudulent testimony when she was interrogated as a Nazi collaborator, Ronald conveys the glittering surface of Gould's life. Without intimate correspondence or diaries, however, she fails to uncover her subject's feelings, motivations, and thoughts, resulting in a one-dimensional portrait of an astonishingly selfish woman. Chronicling her many affairs and swirling social life, Ronald homes in on Gould's liaison with Ludwig Vogel, a former German Luftwaffe officer, who became her lover and protector during the Nazi occupation of France, one of "a dizzying, revolving door of German men." Vogel, though, was the most important, keeping Gould supplied with all manner of "delectable treats" while most Parisians were nearly starving. Although doggedly investigated after the war, not least for her part in a money-laundering scheme, Gould suffered no reprisals, devoting herself to art, music, and pleasure.A light, lively narrative about a singular, narcissistic woman.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171954345
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	02/20/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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